Something Worth Celebrating
by Pardon the Insanity
Summary: When Orihime decides that he needs to celebrate his birthday properly in the world of the living, Ulquiorra is thrown a party that could be the first step in the changing of their relationship.


Well, Rusky-boz recently had her birthday, and so I asked her what sort of fic she would like as her present. She said that she wanted something about Orihime throwing a birthday party for Ulquiorra, so I did my best to fulfill that prompt. While my first concern was making something that she would enjoy, I nonetheless hope that everybody else who reads it will like it as well.

* * *

Everybody burst into laughter when Keigo finally opened his eyes and began wiping cake from his face. Orihime tried unsuccessfully to force the laughter back down her throat, but it bubbled up at the indignant glare that was shot Kurosaki's way. It had been so long since all of them had been able to get together like this without the tenseness of war hanging over their heads, without the worry and concern humming in the back of their minds. Birthdays or parties or hanging out in the fashion most students did had been out of the question. Orihime had not realized how rare it had become to see everybody smiling and laughing together.

As she turned to the person sitting next to her, she felt her smile slip just a fraction. Perhaps 'everybody' had been too broad a term. For a moment she watched Ulquiorra, noting the clinical way he surveyed the scene before him. She could practically envision the manner in which his mind was documenting the event, categorizing details and filing them away for possible application later. His expression and his actions were as impassive as ever, yet Orihime knew that there was undoubtedly more going on behind that blank face. Over the past half a year or so, she had been able to realize just how deep his curiosities ran.

It was difficult to see, however. One had to really look, or at least know where to look, to find the subtle ways in which he betrayed himself. She had felt so awkward around him when he had first come to the human world, when she would try to act like herself but be unable to escape recollections of the setting in which all their previous interactions had taken place.

Those well-defined roles of the guard and the prisoner had taken her a while to discard. But when she had seen the flashes of confusion on his face at things she had always taken to be so simple and straightforward – a child's amusement at splashing through puddles, or the sudden and unending onslaughts of welcomes from store employees, or someone giving up their seat for another on the train – the distinctions gradually faded.

So with time, she had been able to approach him with something almost akin to ease and try to explain the things around him. Of course, from explanations it had then become necessary to help him actually experience many of the things she told him about. She had found much of her free time spent with Ulquiorra, and at some hazy point she had realized that it was not from any sense of obligation but because she simply enjoyed his company.

She had stopped trying to explain that to her nakama long ago. They all seemed determined to believe that this was just an extension of her good will, just like her act to bring him back. But while it might have started like that, perhaps as a way for her to attempt to validate everything she had told him in Las Noches, that was certainly not the case any longer.

His gaze slid over to hers, and she smiled softly, almost apologetically, before he turned his attention back to what was no doubt to him a baffling, and probably stupid, display. No, for a while now she had been aware that there was something else sliding through the background of her thoughts where it concerned Ulquiorra. After what had happened with Kurosaki, she had been reluctant to analyze her feelings toward Ulquiorra; she had seen no benefit to risking the friendship that had miraculously grown up between them for something that neither of them was probably ready for. But that did not stop her from catching herself staring at him, or enjoying his infrequent touches more than they warranted, or allowing the odd daydream to cross her thoughts.

By now, the crowd had calmed down and were starting to gather their scattered belongings from the various corners of the karaoke room. Ulquiorra ignored the babbling around him, rising and handing Orihime her purse wordlessly. She grinned and thanked him, taking out her wallet and riffling through her money to pay her portion of the bill.

"That's unnecessary," Ulquiorra said, pushing her wallet back into her purse and digging out his own.

"Oh, Cifer is so smooth!" Keigo said loudly, his voice equal parts jealousy and admiration.

Realizing what he was suggesting, Orihime felt her face flush instantly. "Ah, wait, it's not–"

"You are too quick to assume things," Ulquiorra said dryly. "I am merely repaying her for the groceries she had to purchase when she made me dinner last week."

"She made you _dinner_?"

Completely flustered, Orihime pushed on Ulquiorra's arm, trying to force him out the door before he did any further damage. "Goodnight everybody! See you at school Monday!" she said as cheerfully as she could while her face felt like it might burn off.

Once they were walking at street level, she sighed and adjusted her scarf awkwardly. She cast a sidelong glance at Ulquiorra, wondering if he would always be so blunt and oblivious. Her lip twitched slightly as she realized that, regardless of how embarrassing and awkward he could make situations, she rather hoped he would stay this way.

They had walked a few blocks before Orihime started to wonder what was going on. Ulquiorra tended to be quiet, but in these instances when it was just the two of them they usually had some sort of conversation. His silence now struck her as strange, and she found herself trying to fill it. "So, that was the first birthday party that you've been able to go to since you've been here, right? Did you enjoy it?"

He glanced at her momentarily before turning his eyes forward again. "It was strange."

"Strange?" She pursed her lips and tried to think about what had happened during the night that could be considered out of the ordinary for her group of friends. "How so?"

"Do humans always make such a fuss over something as mundane as the day that one was born?" he countered.

It took a moment for her to process the comment, but once she did it was impossible to not gawk at him. "Mundane? Birthdays aren't mundane! Well," she quickly amended, "they can be if nobody pays attention to them. But they shouldn't be."

"Why?"

"Because it _is_ the day that a person was born," she sighed, feeling that this shouldn't have been that difficult to understand. "If it's somebody's birthday, and they have people who care about them, then those people should want to celebrate it. It's like saying that they are happy that person is alive, and that they are glad that they get to spend each year with them."

"So it's not just to commemorate the fact that somebody managed to not die for another year," he replied, and Orihime could not tell if he was being serious or making a wry comment.

Regardless, she laughed. "No, although I suppose it might be taken that way for some people."

"It seems very superfluous," Ulquiorra said after a pause. He pushed his hands into his pockets, and she waited for him to continue. "If you already spend time with these people, it should be obvious that you appreciate their existence. There is no reason to go out of your way one day a year and draw blatant attention to this fact."

She gave him a lopsided smile. "You sound like somebody who got snubbed from having birthday parties."

"Perhaps. Life in Hueco Mundo had no use for something as frivolous as that. If I took part in such things as a human, I do not remember."

That comment instantly snapped everything back into focus, and Orihime bit back the comments that had lingered upon her tongue. There were times when it was so easy to forget what Ulquiorra was, or wasn't, and by this point so many of the divisions between them had been blurred. It was hard sometimes to recall that his past encompassed a very different sort of existence than her own.

It wasn't fair, that all he could remember was a life of violence and struggle. Those in Soul Society were able to live almost identically to humans, even indulging in things like birthday parties. While she knew that some souls did deserve to go to Hueco Mundo, there were those who were there through circumstances that did not seem to warrant that punishment. If Ulquiorra could not remember his life as a human it was unlikely that she would ever know which group he belonged to, but if he was able to gain a heart she could not imagine that his situation had been anything but tragic.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. As she watched the puff of her breath in the winter air, she could not decide what exactly she was apologizing for.

"You do not need to apologize."

They were close to her apartment now, and Orihime could feel the whirling of her thoughts. What had happened to him in the past might not be fair, but that was all it was: the past. It was within her power to change things at present, and if she had already done so much to try to have him properly experience life, this should be no different.

He waited while she dug out her keys. When they rested in her hand, she turned them over in her fingers before looking up at him. "I guess you must not remember when your birthday is," she started, her voice firm, "but… I'm going to throw you a birthday party."

I:I:I:I:I

Sleep was much more elusive than Ulquiorra would have liked. He stared at the dark ceiling, listening to the hum of the heater as it kicked on, and felt himself frown. There were plenty of arrancar who had been willing to indulge in sleep; some, like Starrk, had been a little too happy to do so. He had never seen the appeal of dropping his guard that dramatically, and it seemed that that perspective had influenced his ability to sleep in the human world.

That wouldn't have been an issue if he was still an arrancar, but his body was different now. The hollow hole and mask were gone, and he had a form that was visible in the human world, but his reiatsu screamed hollow; various seals had been used to try to keep the shinigami from responding to it.

As it was, while he did not need to sleep for the ridiculously long hours that humans seemed to require, he was still aware that he would have to fall asleep at some point if he was going to be able to function in the morning. But even though the room was dark, his vision was still full of the red hair and flashing brown eyes of the woman who had changed everything he had thought he knew.

She spouted all sorts of nonsense on a fairly regular basis; Ulquiorra had become used to both the whimsical and inane sides of the way she looked at the world. Under other circumstances, he might have called her ridiculous for proposing to hold a _birthday party_, of all things, for him, but her face had been so determined. There had been that slight knot of tension between her brows, the one that showed up whenever she felt especially motivated to do something, and he had found himself unable to speak the words that would have so easily dismissed that absurd idea.

So now the thought had sunk into his mind, turned over and analyzed from every angle. It was not so much the idea of a birthday party that puzzled him – he had long ago accepted that humans had strange rituals and he would just have to stop questioning them – but that she would want to do something of that significance for him. No sooner had she made the statement than her landlord had called to her about maintenance of some sort, and she had been forced to hurry off with only a jumbled comment about texting him soon, leaving him with her words ringing in his head.

All through the walk back to his apartment, he had considered the absurdity of this situation. A year ago he had been a hollow. He had held a high rank, and wielded considerable power, and had governed his existence by rules that were black and white. Surviving there had been brutal and grim, but it had been simple in its straightforwardness, the lack of subtlety about the motives and ambitions of every other individual. It was what it was. There had been orders to carry out, coldly, calculatedly, and that had been it. There had been no purposes besides those handed to him.

And now he was trying to _sleep_ in the one small bedroom of his apartment, mulling over the offer of a birthday party that had been made to him by a young human woman. Everything was so drastically different now than everything he had known, but regardless of the useless flamboyance and irritating busyness of all the humans crammed around him, he was unable to go back to the logic that would have driven him from this place. He found that there were times in those quiet moments, like when they had stood in front of her apartment after she had made her declaration, that there was a flood of warmth in the space of his chest that, for years upon years, had only been filled with cold. She called it happiness.

Ulquiorra wondered if she was aware of all the things she had done to him, for him, since their paths had first crossed. It was clear that she was not oblivious to everything, but he was certain that she could not truly grasp the little ways her influence had touched him. Things might have been different if she had not been so adamant about supervising his 'introduction to human society', as she put it; there would have been little reason for their paths to cross as frequently as they did if she had not so enthusiastically welcomed his company.

But she had, and so he had spent much of his time with her, at least when he had first come to that world. While it had puzzled him then, that she would choose to even be around him, he found it even more difficult to understand now. Perhaps she had some unnecessary sense of obligation at the beginning, that since she had brought him back she should help him acclimate. He certainly hoped that had not been the case, but at least he would have been able to grasp where she might have gotten that motivation.

The thing was that she still spent time with him. Even now, years after the fact, she would appear outside his apartment at all hours, wanting to watch some show with him or share some recipe she had tried. She was insistent that he visit her as well, and if he went too long without stopping by her place he was guaranteed to be on the receiving end of her exceedingly rare scowl.

He was starting to realize, however, that there was a sort of danger to this. It had grown with time, slowly, so that he had not been aware of it until it had already taken hold. It had been in the shadows of all their time together: the sweep of her lashes across her cheeks when she had fallen asleep doing homework, her legs tucked under the warmth of the kotatsu; the ringing of her laughter when a dog had stolen his lunch as they sat on a bench in the park; the way her hair had smelled when she leaned in close to talk to him on the train.

How she had looked at him when he had presented her with a present upon her graduation.

The way her hand had felt, not more than two weeks before, when she had threaded it with his while they sat on her couch watching a movie.

Ulquiorra never would have thought that such little things could be so powerful, that something as simple as the warmth of her hand within his could make him wonder if it was really possible for him to stay there, if he could truly have this sort of life. He had started his time in that world ill at ease, uncomfortable and frustrated by the lack of power, the interdependence, and he had not been able to fathom how she could speak so highly of such an existence.

Yet now he found that somehow she had managed to change how everything looked so that he could almost envision that there might be a place for him, if he wanted it. And somewhere in the back of his thoughts, he could not help but wonder if perhaps that place could be beside her.

His brow furrowed and he turned over; he was still unused to the way these sorts of thoughts, unbidden and unwanted, seemed to slink around the edges of his consciousness. Blinking, he reached behind him for his cell phone and stared at the time on the digital display.

3:30

He did little to smother the sigh that worked its way up his throat before rising. Continuing to try to sleep now would be pointless. As he pulled the cord for the light, waiting the moment it took for his eyes to adjust, he had to concede that it wasn't the first time he had lost sleep over something concerning that woman.

I:I:I:I:I

He was annoyed. Orihime could tell; he had that subtle knot between his eyebrows, the hint of an expression that he would not allow himself to show. As much as he tried to hide it, she had been around him too much to not notice something like that. If he tried so hard to keep his face blank, even the faintest changes were perceptible.

Knotting her hands together, she figured that it was probably understandable. She knew that he had been working a double shift at his job and had probably only been home for a couple minutes, but he had the shift for the next month. While she had initially thought about waiting, her imagination had unfolded until it had become impossible to stifle her excitement for that long.

So she had gone to his apartment that evening, when she knew he would be back, and had practically bounced on his doorstep until he had agreed to follow her. Thus far there had been little conversation, and she could feel the undercurrent of awkwardness working its way through her enthusiasm. Maybe this had been a mistake. She had told him that she was going to throw him a birthday party, but they hadn't discussed it since that night. He hadn't been interested then, so why had she thought he would be interested now?

As they finally approached her apartment, though, Orihime tried to shake herself of her misgivings. They were just nerves. She had done all sorts of ridiculous things with him before, even when she was quite aware that it was unlikely that he would like them. But she would never know unless she tried, and there had been instances when he had liked things that she would never have imagined. She was just more emotionally invested in the outcome on this instance.

"Where are you going?" he asked, and she paused when she realized that he was waiting at her door.

"Well, what I wanted to share actually isn't in my room. We need to go up to the roof."

The skepticism that settled over his features then was painfully obvious. She grinned meekly and continued, sighing when she heard his footfalls. At least he was still following her.

When they got to the door to the rooftop, she bit her lip. "Um… would you… close your eyes?" she ventured, trying her best to keep her voice from being swallowed in the silence.

He stared at her for a long moment before his eyes slid shut. Orihime released a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding back as she pushed the door open and grabbed his sleeve, leading him through as quickly as she could; she didn't know how long his indulgence would last.

As soon as she had led him between the lanes of clotheslines to the relatively empty side of the roof, she let go of her hold on his jacket and swallowed. "Surprise!"

Slowly, Ulquiorra opened his eyes. Orihime watched his gaze sweep across the roof, the reflection of the lights making it difficult to read any flicker of emotion that might have been present in it. She waited in the silence, looking around at the decorations herself and wondering if they were okay. She didn't have the same level of spending money as she had in high school, but she had been determined that she would do this the right way. A part of the spending money she kept out from her checks the last two months had been stashed away in an envelope tucked in her desk, and while it had taken considerable willpower to be patient, she had ultimately had enough money to purchase all the birthday necessities.

So there were some balloons tied up to the railing, and a colorful banner proclaiming _Happy Birthday!_ rigged up with a spare clothesline. Those were probably a little much, Orihime had to admit, but it _was_ a birthday party and such decorations seemed to go with the territory. Besides, the focal point was really the table; it stood in the middle of the space, bright tablecloth covered with a spread of different dishes and containers.

Wordlessly, Ulquiorra took a few steps forward, looking down at the table. She bit her lip, trying desperately to hold back the flood of comments filling her throat. It seemed like an impossibly long moment before he turned to her. "Are more people going to arrive?"

She wasn't sure what she had thought he would say, but that question was certainly not it. "No, it's just us," she replied quickly, and when she realized how the words sounded once spoken aloud, she sputtered to explain herself. "I mean, I know you tolerate my friends, but realize that all of them together can be a little overwhelming sometimes, so I thought you might prefer something quieter. I guess me being here might ruin that effect, actually, so maybe you'd like me to go, too… I could certainly do that, you know, and I wouldn't—"

"Woman."

Her mouth snapped shut immediately, and she felt her blush darkening at the way the exasperation on his face was tempered by some other emotion she could not pinpoint.

"I was merely surprised at the amount of food; it would seem more reasonable that this would be for a group rather than two people."

"Oh!" Orihime laughed, gaze sliding to the side as she rubbed the back of her leg with her foot. "Well… it's really hard to tell what your favorite food is. You're usually so blunt about everything, but you've never given me a clear answer about what you like best. So I just had to buy or make everything I knew you liked."

He was silent now, and Orihime took the opportunity to push lightly on his arm. "Go sit. I need to go grab a couple things; I wasn't sure how long it would take to convince you to come, so I left some stuff in my apartment. I'll go get them really fast."

Once he settled into his seat, she turned to the door and hurried back downstairs. Although she tried desperately to get her grin under control, she realized that it would probably be useless. So far things hadn't been a disaster, and she was hopeful about the prospects for the rest of the evening. With her nerves slowly relaxing, she felt a welling of confidence that she would be able to make this experience enjoyable for him.

I:I:I:I:I:

He stared at the table, trying to wrap his head around everything that was displayed upon it. A large bowl of cold udon with two pieces of tempura battered chicken. A plate of gyoza, some popping at the edges and betraying their homemade nature. One of those flimsy plastic containers holding four korokke, precariously held together with a rubber band. A prepackaged serving of daigakuimo, still warm if the condensation was any indication. A large Styrofoam cup full of curry ramen. Three bowls of assorted sizes holding ebi senbei and rice and salad. Interspersed with the food were cutlery and glasses, and he shook his head when he realized that he did not have one but four glasses.

All of it would have taken a considerable amount of time. He wondered when she had first gone out there, stringing up balloons and decorations and setting up the table. And then there was all the time that it would have taken her to go to the various stores to buy everything – or make it. It was a little overwhelming to consider.

Yet not terribly surprising, coming from her. She had given him fair warning, after all. It was just, with all the time that had passed, the memory had faded, pushed into the background by other concerns. While he had not doubted her sincerity at the time, he understood that she was busy with her part time job and schoolwork, so it had been of little concern to him.

And yet, here he was.

The door creaked, and Ulquiorra turned to watch her walk over. She held a tray in her hands, the contents of which she either found room for on the table or tucked under her seat, but he was distracted by the unexpected shimmer of her dress.

"You changed," he stated. When she gaped at him, he continued. "Your clothes."

"Ah! Yes, that." She smoothed down the deep fuchsia fabric before taking her seat. "Well, part of me has always wanted to have some sort of high class birthday party, like at one of those fancy restaurants in Shibuya, but with my friends…"

"They would surely embarrass you with their antics," he interjected, knowing that she would somehow dance around the truth. "They manage to do that at even such an unsophisticated place as a karaoke parlor."

Orihime tried to frown at him, but it slowly withdrew like a silent concession. "I was going to say that most of them would probably not have much fun at such a place," she countered before continuing. "The point is that while I would have loved to do something like that with you, I thought you would rather have something private if possible. Yet even though the location obviously isn't that fancy, I didn't see why that should stop me from treating it as though it were. I mean, it is a special occasion, after all!"

To be quite honest, Ulquiorra found it rather difficult to particularly care what her logic was on the matter. It was disconcerting how his attention could wander to things that, while perhaps worthy of a moment of consideration, would have never held his attention when he was a hollow, like how her smile creased the shadow of one little dimple into her cheek, or how her fingers danced nervously at the edge of the table, or how the saturated color of her dress almost made her skin seem opalescent in the dusk.

His silence was apparently too long because Orihime suddenly clapped her hands together. "Well, nothing is going to get any better than it is now, so please eat! Oh!" She hurriedly reached beside her and managed to lift three different bottles into her arms. "I didn't know what you would want to drink, either."

She filled two of his cups with water and Mets, and when she found the chopsticks that had gotten lost between some of the bowls, she proceeded to dish out the foods that he indicated, regardless of his insistence that he could do it himself. She merely smiled and pushed his hand away with the chopsticks before continuing, telling him that she didn't mind. So he sat there, watching the fluttering movements of her hands as she filled the quiet with her chatter, making comments when necessary but otherwise leaving her to her devices.

The meal passed comfortably, flecked with conversation that had slowly dwindled into silence as the evening wore on. Ulquiorra was not sure what time it was anymore, although he knew it was late; he hadn't heard the distant sounds of the train for a while, so it had to be sometime after midnight. Orihime was leaning against the table and staring up into the sky, her lips pursed slightly.

"What are you frowning for?" he found himself asking, holding her gaze when it flickered down to him.

"I was frowning?" She blinked thoughtfully. "I didn't mean to. I was just thinking that it was sad that you can't see very many stars here. The city is too bright, so only a couple of them usually show up."

He turned his gaze upward. "Why would you want to see more?"

"Well!" she started, straightening, and he wondered how long this tangent would be. "Of course it's just pretty to see more stars, but I was thinking that if you could see more stars you might be able to see more _falling_ stars. I've only seen one before."

"Stars don't fall."

"They can look like they do, though. And when you see one, you can make a wish!"

"A wish–?" he began to ask, but she jumped up suddenly.

"A wish! Your cake!" She squatted down next to her chair and pulled out one of the boxes that she had pushed beneath it before quickly bushing away the dishes from a corner of the table. "I can't believe I almost forgot the most important part of a birthday party! I'm so glad I decided to put that ice packet in when I put this together in the bakery earlier. This could have been a disaster."

For his part, Ulquiorra doubted that it would have been that horrible, but he realized that this was important to her and did not say as much. Instead he watched her maneuver the cake out of the box and onto the table, where it sat there in all its pristine glory. "I didn't want to get anything too flamboyant," she said while pushing a candle into the center, as though she needed to justify the cake to him. "It's just a lemon cake with a vanilla crème frosting. Nobue is excellent with that frosting; I can never get it to look so smooth, so I knew she would do a good job with it."

At this, he looked at her. "You didn't make it?"

Orihime laughed as she lit the candle. "Well, I know my tastes are a little hit or miss. If I had too much control over the baking, I thought I might get a little too excited and do something ridiculous. I wanted to make sure you'd like it."

He did not answer immediately, considering her words for a moment before blowing out the candle. He looked at the smooth frosting and careful layers of his slice when she handed him his plate. "I would have liked whatever you made," he said finally, grabbing his fork and taking a bite.

He tried to ignore the blush that suffused her cheeks at this, just like she seemed to try to ignore what he had said. When they finished eating, they began clearing everything away, separating out the trash into the different bags she had brought up. Ulquiorra offered to help her take everything down, but she insisted that some of it could wait until tomorrow and that, in any case, he was banned from doing work of that nature anyway.

That didn't stop him from grabbing the containers that held the leftovers and carrying them down to her apartment for her. Orihime tried to get him to take some of the food with him, but he told her that she had already overdone it; if she kept the food, at least then she could have it for leftovers later. Grudgingly, she had accepted his reasoning, although only because he was the birthday boy and she couldn't argue too much with him as a result. Ulquiorra reflected back on the other things she had insisted upon throughout the night and wondered how many of them he could have changed if he had just been a little more persistent.

He told her goodnight and would have gone to the door if she had not turned into a sudden flurry of activity. "One minute! I need to give you your gift!" she called before disappearing into her bedroom, returning a moment later with a long white box that she presented to him. "I hope you will like it."

With a touch of reluctance – she had done too much as it was – he took the box from her and carefully opened it. Inside, nestled between sheets of tissue paper, was a vivid green tie.

"I know, I know, a tie is the most boring present in the world," Orihime said quickly, before he had a chance to speak. "I really wanted to get you something better, but then you mentioned that promotion, and I know you are too practical to get even a second tie… so I thought that I could get you a new one. For your new job."

She reached up suddenly, snaking a finger through the loop of his tie and undoing it before he had been able to acclimate to her sudden closeness. In almost the same movement, she flicked up his collar and grabbed the new tie, looping it around his neck. He stared down into her face as she tied it, watching concentration furrow her brow in an attempt to ignore the fingers that, every once and a while, brushed his throat.

Finally she seemed satisfied, and she smiled as she folded his collar down again. "There," she murmured, looking between the tie and his eyes. "It matches."

Even though she had finished, she made no move to step away. Ulquiorra felt distinctly aware of her proximity, the way the warmth of her body so close seeped through the fabric of his suit, and wondered why this was different from the many other occasions when she had been near him.

After a long moment, Orihime lifted her arms and slid them around his waist, leaning against him with her face pressed into the crook of his neck. He felt her hands link behind him, her body snug against his, and then she spoke. "I'm so happy that you're here, so that I could do this. I hope that we can celebrate this way every year."

For a moment, his vision felt touched by fragments of things that were not there. The shimmering flashes of detail were strikingly familiar at some level, even though he could not logically place them: the flash of a smile, the flickering light of a fire, the warmth of a pair of arms around him. There was a voice at his ear, laughing that it must have been God's birthday gift to him that they had such a strangely mild first day of December.

Ulquiorra did not know when he had moved to return her embrace, but when his sight cleared and he could once again concentrate on the present he found himself holding her just as tightly. She did not seem to mind, no tension knotting the muscles beneath his hands, yet all the same he began to pull back.

Even though his intent was clear, she did not release him, and without looking directly at her, he knew the questions that would fill her eyes. "December first," he said, before she had the chance to ask him what was wrong.

Orihime's head tipped slightly, confusion pulling at her features when he looked back at her. "December first?"

"I believe that was my birthday."

The confusion instantly gave way to surprise. He tried to prepare himself for the battery of questions that would no doubt follow, but he was grateful that, after a long moment, she instead just nodded her head. "I'm glad you remember," she said quietly, the touch of a smile pulling her lips as she finally let her arms return to her sides. "I'll get the date right next year, then."

Ulquiorra nodded, pausing before lifting his hand to touch her cheek. "Thank you," he said softly, and he wondered if she would catch the things he could not find the words to say.

Her smile brightened even as the color in her cheeks darkened. They said their goodnights, and within a handful of minutes Ulquiorra found himself once again following the familiar path between their apartments. The air was crisp and undisturbed, a blanket of calm in the late evening that managed to quiet the racing of his thoughts to a hum that would no doubt still be enough to keep him from sleeping. Absently, he touched the knot of the tie. The careful creases and folds recalled the details of the expressions, the blushes, that had crossed her features that evening, and he found himself wondering – perhaps _hoping_ – about what the time between this birthday celebration and the next would hold.

* * *

Just to rant a little about my masochistic tendencies, I have to say that it was awful writing that section about all the foods. All I did was basically lust after all sorts of things that I can't have anymore... I certainly hope that Rusky appreciated the effort I took in trying to be authentic. XD


End file.
